High Nitrate w/low phosphate

greenhead

New member
Never really had this problem before, but I've been using water from either your reef or aqua life and thus have not witnessed any of the issues I was having before. Everything seems to be doing well and growing fine. But tests using multiple test kits all show No3 at 20 ppm. This has caused a couple issues. One it seems to be bothering the fish. All fish had gone months with perfect health. But since the No3 had risen the ich has shown it's ugly face. And now I've lost 2 fish and my coral are beginning to pale since I have been keeping the po4 at undetectable levels with brs high capacity gfo. If I let the po4 rise at all dinos and cyano bloom immediately. I think it's due to the high No3 numbers. I would love to have the po4 sit about .06 for optimal growth and coloration. It seems I have to starve the nuisance algae out.

One idea is to stop with the GFO and start carbon dosing with Vodka or Pellets or even Red Sea NoPoX. I have had really good luck with the NoPoX in the past.

System info
93 gallon 30x30x24 cube
40 gallon frag tank
20 gallon sump
15 gallon equipment tank
No fish in any tank but the 93
Flow in 93
Mp40, rw15, wp25

Sand bed is about 1 to 2 inches deep. All rock was added dry and ran in tank for 2 mos before any livestock were added. Although I did cure a 15 lb real reef rock for 6 mos before it went in with the rest of the dry marco rock. It seemed to cycle well. At least the 12 inch long patches of gha thought so.

Fish load,
4" blue hippo tang
2" vlamingi tang
3" yellow tang
4" melanarus wrasse
4" leopard wrasse
3" yellow coris wrasse
1" cleaner wrasse
2.5" candy striped hog fish
2 x 2" Bengai cardinals
3 x 2" anthias
3" starry blenny
4" algae blenny
2" firefish
2 x 2" clowns
Medium sized rbta

I know that's 18 fish, but they all came out of my 150 cube with about the same amount of water volume. And I even gave a few of the bigger fish away. And never had nitrate problems in that tank. My wife wouldn't part with any more. She has BIG plans for a much larger tank once we feel that the water here in Carmichael is no longer contaminated.

Any advice is appriciated.

Sam
 
I do carbon dose with a 1/2 cup of vinegar daily. My nitrates are 2.5 ppm and my phos is .017. I make my own water and now seem (think) to have the contamination taken care of. Might be a little early to toot my horn about the contaminated water but changing prefilter and carbon block every two months looks like it might solve this issue. I really think that we are pushing the filters to save a little money, but with the contaminates the way they are, i am convinced that the ro/do unit can remove all the crap from our water from what i have researched. The water just "chews" through thd prefiltef and carbon block faster then we want to think. However, give md anotgef 6 months and I will be more convinced if my theory is correct.

You could easily get nitrate undetectable with vinegar. I had it like that but cut back since the growth really slowed done. I like my nitrates <5 ppm and things seem to like life right now.
 
Sam i believe my nitrates are in the 30-40ppm range, not carbon dosing at the moment. I am going to give bio pellets a try. I did have a small issue with my Ro unit letting water not go through the membrane and burning Di resin faster. The auto shut off valve on the unit was letting some water past and not go through the membrane, due to my high water pressure(70+psi).

I do have cyano, but all my fish and corals are fine.
 
Hmm.. I am not using my water. Haven't tested water from AL or YR. But my sps issues have ceased since I started using they're water.

Anthony, what are your po4 readings?
 
YR water is good. I do grab my 10 gals of water when I buy something over $10. That water goes into the top-off container and I haven't noticed anything odd. $.02

As for AL, I couldn't tell you unfortunately :(

When I did purchase the new filters for the RO/Di unit. I also performed a 200 gallon water change within 10 days. I saw things come to life that I never saw before. Honestly, give me time but I think we need to change out prefilters and Carbon Blocks more often then we thing because of the contaminants.
 
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